A study published in BMJ Open shares data from a national survey, looking at access and quality of maternity care for disabled women during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period in England.

Secondary analysis was conducted on data from a 2015 national survey of women’s experience of maternity care. Descriptive and adjusted analyses were undertaken for five disability groups: physical disability, sensory impairment, mental health disability, learning disability and multiple disability, and comparisons were made with the responses of non-disabled women.

1,958 women (9.5%) from the original survey self-identified as having a disability.

The findings of this analysis indicate some gaps in maternity care provision for these women relating to interpersonal aspects of care, including:

Communication

Feeling listened to and supported

Involvement in decision making

Having a trusted and respected relationship with clinical staff

Women from all disability groups wanted more postnatal contacts and help with infant feeding.

Specific areas identified in the article related to the provision of accessible information:

Antenatal information may be distributed in a manner inappropriate and insufficient for women with visual impairment

There is some evidence that women with hearing impairment receive fewer antenatal visits and have limited access to maternity information.

Compared to 56% of women without a disability, a lower proportion of women with a disability said they were given enough information about their physical recovery after birth: women with a physical disability, a mental health condition and multiple disability (48%, 48% and 49%, respectively) were all significantly less likely to have been given this information.

Advice about contraception was less available to all disabled women, significantly so among those with a physical, mental health or learning disability.

Women with mental health, learning or multiple disability were less likely to report being informed of the need to arrange their own postnatal check-up.

Women were also asked about being given information about the emotional changes that might be experienced after the birth. Less than 60% of women overall reported being given enough information about possible changes in mood, and this was even less likely for women with physical disability and those with mental health problems (51% and 52%, respectively).

Malouf R, Henderson J, Redshaw M. Access and quality of maternity care for disabled women during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period in England: data from a national survey. BMJ Open 2017;7:e016757. doi:10.1136/ bmjopen-2017-016757